Apparently, I'm A Criminal

I play poker online.  For money.  I'm not that good.  Someday, someone might name their yacht after me.  I harm no one but myself.  There are millions like me.  People all over the world exercising their natural right (notice I didn't say "God given" right) to do what I please with both my money and my time.  The only difference between me and  someone I may play against from Germany or Ghana or Antartica is that his/her government doesn't consider him/her to be a criminal.  My government, in their infinite wisdom, has chosen to waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money attempting to close down the sites we play on and freezing the assets of the U.S. banks that process our pay-ins and pay-outs. 

This is merely a symptom of a crippling hypocrisy: our government spends billions of dollars prosecuting american citizens exercising basic personal freedoms, while going trillions of dollars in debt to countries like China, who in my lifetime have imprisoned an entire people (Tibet) and rolled over their own citizens with tanks (Tianamen Square, anyone?)

Why do we accept this?  What the hell is wrong with us?  The cost v. benefit realities of government boondoggles such as the war on drugs, and crackdowns on gambling and prostitution are so clear and irrefutable that support of these policies on anything other than religious grounds (which, according to our constitution, is not relevant) is indefensible.